diff --git a/lib/_stream_readable.js b/lib/_stream_readable.js
index d6af8589f3b..49ea08e8570 100644
--- a/lib/_stream_readable.js
+++ b/lib/_stream_readable.js
@@ -81,10 +81,6 @@ function ReadableState(options, stream) {
   // Everything else in the universe uses 'utf8', though.
   this.defaultEncoding = options.defaultEncoding || 'utf8';
 
-  // when piping, we only care about 'readable' events that happen
-  // after read()ing all the bytes and not getting any pushback.
-  this.ranOut = false;
-
   // the number of writers that are awaiting a drain event in .pipe()s
   this.awaitDrain = 0;